Jon Davidson

Most of these simulators are designed for entertainment not training. Or they are designed as the case for condor to substitute for real flying when conditions are poor ,(winter) gain experience with basic instrumentation, and online competition.

None will give you the skills you need from ground zero, except for a basic understanding of how aircraft work. all sims lack realism of stick control, usually it is much to sensitive, and unrealistic. If you are one of us who has full scale flying experience you can overlook these inadequacies, or compensate for them. All planes are tweakable in X-plane and FSX, you can modify the flight characteristics to make them more realistic, up to a point. You will discover that many if not most serious simmers regularly modify, add to, and tweak their sims to suit their particular interest. go take a ride in a sailplane at your local field, most clubs offer an introductory lesson for a very reasonable fee. You may find you don't like soaring, then your search is over or if you become hooked, you can't get enough of flying, and will soon be on your way.

I have P3d v2, FSX 32 bit system (xp) FSX on 64 bit system, (Win 7) X plane, Aerofly FS as well, i have sampled Condor but don't currently have on board.

If you use P3d, you may have some issues installing some of the things you need, i tried it and was moderately successful. You will want the latest Cumulus x, simlogger, latest updated Wolfgang Piper plane or planes, he constantly improves things. the problem with CX is the thermals are static, they don't move. but they do tilt with wind, and by manipulating the turbulence and tweaking CX you can get a reasonable thermal, just static.

other than that FsX holds a lot of potential. It is work to install all of the additional stuff and get it working but it is worth it if you have time and are a glider junkie. Its a bit of a trick to get XCSOAR working but if you know your way around virtual serial ports its not bad. It uses FSX GPS out. you also will need Peter Dowsons FSUIPC, latest version registered.There are a plethora of tutorials on the UKVGA site, and a great friendly group. http://www.ukvga.org/index.php

The Wolfgang Piper gliders in some cases come with a Mccready gauge function. not dependent on XCsoar. there are several ways to skin that cat in FSX. and yes it works reasonably well. There are two types of gauge sets in Wolgangs sailplanes one is the older Caiset system which relies of your manually loading GPS.NAV data into FSX. the other more recent is the B21 gauge set designed by British programer full scale a glider/ sim pilot Ian Forester Lewis. If you have an open mind try it , I can't explain it all here. Better yet visit the UKVGA they are a dedicated group of simmers and full scale glider pilots with a tremendous dedication to getting online multiplayer realistic glider simming accomplished. twice a week no less. I agree thermal modeling is probably better in Condor, it has  its advantages, but as I said it depends on your goals and expectations which is best for you. I feel that FSX offers a much richer wider experience than condor, but that is just me. I worked with the National soaring museum and for full scale training Condor is the go to program, but not everyone wants a trainer program and is willing to take some, give some with FSX. the point is FSX is not a terrible soaring simulator if you have the patience to sort it out. Dismissing it out of hand as terrible is really not fair.

I design scenery for FSX and in particular some glider fields that have realistic buildings and runways, this eye candy for me and apparently about 250 others who have downloaded it is worth the effort.

While this has degenerated into a mine is good yours is bad sentiment. It really depends on you goals and expectations. I find FSX to be superior gliding simulator in many respects. Why? Because I enjoy flying in many parts of the world with realistic or photorealistic scenery with accurate roads and even historic landmarks and turnpoints.

The real issue is flight dynamics, frankly, no simulatior gives that seat of the pants total immersion than actually flying gives you in your gut.

FSX does require addons and modifications to beome a fairly realistic glider sim, certainly out of the box it is poor, but with dedication it can be transformed quite well. This can be said about any FSX niche whether soaring, commercial flight simulation, or what have you.

The basics are Cumulus X, which has also various tow plane options, as well as a little program called Aerotow which is now defunct but can be found around the net. Yes you need a weather program if you want real world weather, but most often in soaring we pick our conditions for the day and by using the weather utility in Native FSX and Cumulus X you can generate reasonably realistic conditions.

Wolfgang Pipers glider collection has already been mentioned. and most include some form of  soaring navigation function, for more realism you can download and install XCSOAR which is a full scale glider computer. with this tool and Plan-G another mapping utility, you can calculate, design, and execute complex soaring tasks and track the real time performance of any of several full scale polars of actual sailplanes. In addition there is a way to log your flight as an igc file and replay it or analyze it with Cambridge software or SEEYOU software, the latter which you can replay in full color of realistic terrain mapping. There is much more to be discovered, I have gone on long enough, but to simply say FSX is rubbish is a myopic and limited view by those who have not invested the time to get FSX tweaked to glider simulation. Condor is great for those with limited and specific goals, but FSX opens the whole world to the art of soaring.

I have been silently publishing some small low and slow VFR airports for about three months. most of them are located in the northeastern part of the U.S and represent some defunct as well as currently operating airports. If your interested in seeing what I have to offer. All are published here on AVSIM. I also have a small webpage that highlights some of the airports with photo galleries. Take a look. I am also open to requests, and if an airport looks interesting I may just build it. I am now using Sketch up so all future sceneries will have custom and accurate buildings for the individual airport if possible.
Thanks for looking,
Jon Davidson

PS: the latest two are Taylor field in Hammondsport NY, and the Yorkshire gliding Club at Sutton Bank UK. Sutton Bank is made exclusively for use with ORBX England and features all hand made buildings to match the originals including the unique round club house.

After reading the last three pages, I have come to believe all current flight sims are indeed a thing of the past. We(so called "serious simmers" are stuck here until we die because we are heavily invested in software, addons, and platforms etc.

Forget what you know, the future will bring virtual reality to new heights. with Oculus Rift sold to Facebook, Zuckerberg has the intention of making available near to cost to get the technology out there in the hands of consumers. Future simming will be closer to the Star Trek Holodeck than the primitive offerings of a sim born in the 1980's. The problem with we simmers is we are incapable of making that transition even if it( some great new technology) were available now. We love and refuse to give up FSX,P3D, X-Plane et al with their backwards compatibility. So in essence it makes no difference at all if the FS license is sold to someone, nothing will change for us, probably in our  lifetime.

Relax...

I don't know what "franchise" means in the context of all this. and I don't think many others do either. If it means branding, then it could have nothing to do with a new or old FSX. LM has the ESP code, that's FSX essentially, and they market it under there own name as a unique product.

Someone apparently bought the license to the FS "Franchise"? So that means to me they just bought the right to a name with the agreement to pay Microsoft for the use of that name. What ensues will not be a new FSX.

But like everyone else I'm just speculating with my head in the sand.

...no. Have you seen the upcoming Vector 1.20 update. It contains entirely new hydro data for North America.

no and neither have you, only screen shots.I guess the key word is "upcoming" not released yet, we can hope, I suppose, it  will fix everything, including secondary roads. still I will put my money on UTX until that time comes.

Have you looked at the 1.20 update? It's all rivers and streams

Your confusing products. Global vector was the program to which I refered. Vector handles roads and rivers and streams. ORBX global handles landclass and is updated to 1.20.

Global Vector can release all the updates it wants but unless they address the real issue of missing rivers streams and secondary roads its usless for 90 % of our flying. UTX is still superior in all dimensions. granted unless you fly in asia australia or Africa. I would guess the majority fly in The U.S. and europe. The hype is not up to the reality for the prices they charge. wait for Flight one's next generation, and use the specific regions for Orbx, I also am sorry I installed ORBX world now, it really adds to many forrested landclasses in the areas I fly, but that is a personal preference.

Frankly, as it stands now , for the areas UTX covers, Global Vector is a very poor second. I have tested both extensivly on multiple installs of FSX, both 32 and 64 bit environments. clean installs and both installed together. Vector misses large amounts of data, rivers missing, no secondary roads no land class etc., well UTX is a complete Package. Vector is only OSM data plugged into a commercial package. and a Beta release at best. I would not advise buying it at this time until they extensivly improve it. It's only saving grace is that it is Global and is better than nothing in areas out side UTX coverage, but lets face it who's flying in Antarctica?

The truth no shill here...

Jon

Originally a UTX, GEX, FSGenisis guy. I tried vector and was dissapointed. the reason mostly it is not adjustable as UTX. Vector just runs and you take what you get. UTX has so much more depth as a customizable addon. I agree with the above as well. I Use FTX Global, and have UTX enabled underneath it withGEX in non ORBX areas, and it is the best combination I have been able to come up with for realism. I hear flight one is working on a P3D addon should be the one to watch for that sim.